


Ladies' Tea

by glasscannon



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode s09e10 Face The Raven, allosexual Doctor, and we wouldn't have him any other way, but it was mostly a coping exercise anyway lbh, canon through the end of Face the Raven, frank talk about death, likely to be jossed by next weekend, post-Face the Raven, serial-monogamous Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscannon/pseuds/glasscannon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where am I?” Clara asked, blinking at the brightness.  She was seated at a round table overlooking a flowering garden, and across from her were sat three people, all looking at her expectantly.  One of them was green.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ladies' Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta Jezunya, especially for the kick in the pants to get this finished.
> 
> Hope you find this as cathartic as I did.

**Ladies' Tea**

 

“There, I think that did it.  …Well, is she here or isn’t she?  I don’t understand what’s taking so long.”

“Give her a moment, the line’s been on hold a long time.”

Clara knew those voices, she was almost sure.  She blinked up at them, lifting her chin from her chest and squinting against what appeared to be bright afternoon sunlight.  She felt lightheaded and yet like her head was full of too much, achy in a way she couldn’t quite describe.  Drawing breath brought the ache to a sharp point in her chest, but seemed to clear her head, so Clara took another and rolled her shoulders against the stiffness.

“Where am I?” she asked, blinking at the brightness.  She was seated at a round table overlooking a flowering garden, and across from her were sat three people, all looking at her expectantly.  One of them was green.

“Ladies’ tea,” said the one to her right, the bigger-haired of the two not-green women, smiling at her.

“Welcome back,” added the other non-green one, from her left, and Clara turned to look at her, her eyes adjusting to the light and her mind slowly catching up.

Oh.  “You changed the desktop,” Clara said, sounding a little bleary even to herself.

The curly-haired one – River – smiled again.  “Yes, I was feeling in a spring-type mood.  Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Clara agreed groggily.  “But how did I get here?  Did you drug me again?” she asked Vastra, trying not to sound accusatory.  “No, wait, hang on, wasn’t I just—”

“Facing the Raven?” River asked, her smile sympathetic.  “Unfortunately yes, all that business with the quantum shade really did happen.”

“Your body is dead,” Vastra added, blunt but smiling.  “The rest of you is here, with us.”

“I’m dead?” Clara asked, reflexive – that’s just the question you ask when faced with a statement like that.

But then it’s there, like the pain in her chest, a fleeting edge of memory.  Shock, and sadness, and _don’t be a warrior_ and _don’t say it now, I know already_ , and big sad eyes, a kiss to the back of her hand, _let me be brave_ , and then pain, pain, pain, _pain_.

And then tea in a flower garden with River, Vastra, and Jenny.

“I’m dead,” she repeated, slowly coming to grips with the idea.  “Alright then, I’m dead.  But how did I get _here_?”

River shrugged, still smiling at her sympathetically.  “I kept the line open, since Trenzalore.  My own little insurance policy.  I know our mister, and he’s not going to take this well.  Maybe if he knows that a part of you survived, it will keep him from the darkness we both know he could fall into so easily.  Jenny and Vastra will send him word, when they can.  Hopefully it will help.”

Clara looked at her for a long moment, seeing the Doctor’s haunted expression instead.  “Thank you.  For saving me, for thinking of him, thank you.  But…  Now what?  Live eternity in a tea garden?”

River’s smile brightened.  “If you like,” she laughed.

“Or any other sim,” Jenny added.

“But I thought,” River continued, leaning in conspiratorially, “that you might like to come live where I live, in one of the largest libraries in the universe.  It is a finite space, which can feel ever so limiting for a time traveler, but the catalogue is functionally infinite.  And someone had the good sense to data-print Jane Austen at some point, so she comes ‘round for tea every so often, couple of other authors as well.”

“What, are you serious?  What is this, design your own heaven?  Wait, how did you know to invoke the name of Jane Austen?” Clara asked suspiciously.  “Have you been listening in?”

River laughed and took a sip of tea.  “No no,” River said, “matter of fact, it’s Jane that mentioned _you_.  Most authors who wander through the Library’s database had some interaction with the Doctor during their lives, so it’s a bit of sport to try to get their stories about him.  But in Jane’s stories, the Doctor is more of a background figure, the man who brought Clara Oswald to stay.  How could you not utterly adore that woman?”

Clara could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks and nodded and sipped her tea – made to her exact preferences and still warm, of course – to cover.  “I know the feeling.  But why are you over-selling this?” she asked, leaning an elbow on the table and looking at River shrewdly. 

“You have just died,” Jenny said gently, taking her other hand.  “It may take you awhile to adjust, and to grieve.  We just want you to be as happy as you can be.”

“We all know what you’ve lost, Clara Oswald,” Vastra said from across the table.  “And not just your life.  On Trenzalore, during the time I thought I’d lost Jenny, I—”  Her voice broke, and she shook her head, withdrawing.  Jenny reached her other hand over and gripped her wife’s gloved hand against the table top.

Clara could feel the tears gathering before she’d consciously caught up to the thought.  “I’m never going to see him again, am I?” she asked, looking to River.

“No,” River answered, and the sadness there was echoed in the phantom pain in Clara’s chest.  “And if you do, it won’t be the same, it won’t feel real.  This is what it is to love this man, this infuriating, infinite man.  He lives on, and leaves his ghosts on a shelf, quite literally.  Dead is dead, especially to a man like him, especially with the timeline he has: crossing back simply poses too many risks, so forward is the only way he can move. 

“And maybe I’m getting soft in my old age,” she continued, barely pausing to produce a handkerchief and hand it to Clara, who put it to immediate use, “but I find I love him for it.  After he lost me and my parents, he swore on whole galaxies he’d never fall in love again.  But eventually he found you, and did love again, and will do again.  There is a seed of hope buried so deeply in that man’s hearts that he can’t help himself, bless.”

For one long moment, it hurt to even think about.  That the Doctor might – could, _would_ – move on, go on adventures clasping someone else’s hand, see wonders, fall in love all over again, that she might one day be nothing more than a nameless face in the TARDIS’s database, one more faceless name for the Doctor to mutter about missing within earshot of his next companion, his next _carer_ , whoever _replaced her_ – that, somehow, for one long, breathless moment, hurt worse than dying.

But as soon as Clara acknowledged the pain, it had passed.  “Good,” she said, voice thick with tears.  “He shouldn’t be alone.”

“Nor will he be,” Vastra answered.  “We cared for him at his bleakest once before, and we shall again.  You have my word, the both of you.”

“Thank you Vastra, Jenny,” River said softly, glancing between the two of them.

“Next month at the usual time?” Jenny asked, looking to River but squeezing Clara’s hand.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” River smiled.

“We’ll bring word from the Doctor,” Vastra added, “if there is any.  Until then, Dr. Song, Miss Oswald.”

Jenny let go of Clara’s hand, and then it was just the two of them, and the faint rustle of leaves, and Clara’s increasingly noisy tears.

“I can’t believe I was so _stupid_ ,” she said after a moment, pressing the handkerchief against her eyes, though the tears refused to slow.  “I was stupid and reckless and I went behind the Doctor’s back and I _hurt him_ , oh god, River, what have I done?”  Her tears had become hiccupping sobs, the words forced out by will alone, but she wiped at her eyes and curled her hands into fists and tried to swallow down the wretchedness in her chest.  There would be plenty of time to grieve for herself later, she needn’t make River witness it.

River placed her hand over one of Clara’s clenched ones.  “From what I could see, you spent your last few minutes of life comforting _him_ , making sure he would be able to continue on after your loss.  You gave him a chance to say goodbye, and for a man who doesn’t like endings, that’s more important than you know.  From where I’m sitting, I’d say you did quite well,” she added, squeezing Clara’s hand a little.

Deep breaths were nearly forcing her sobs back down, and Clara snorted and shook her head, hot tears still slipping down her cheeks.  “I thought you weren’t listening in.”

“I wasn’t, not exactly,” River replied, retreating a little to sip her tea again.  “But the line was open, and every time you put yourself in mortal danger, the line would… buzz a little, I suppose you could say.  Your subconscious mind trying to escape to safety, I think.  The buzzing was, well, a little extreme this time, and it didn’t take much concentration for me to pick up the details of what was happening.”

“And if you’d pulled me out sooner?” Clara asked, staring straight ahead out into the flower garden.  There was a butterfly fluttering from one bloom to another, with markings Clara had never seen before.

“The quantum shade would have followed you here, and destroyed your data ghost as well as killed your body.”

Clara wondered if the butterfly was even real.  Here it was digital, of course, just like her and River and their tea and the flowers and the afternoon sunlight.  But had it ever _been_ real?  Was this evidence of River adding in a little exotic detail she had witnessed on her own journeys through space and time, or had she invented it out of whole cloth, something pretty to decorate her digital prison?  She wondered if it even really mattered, in the end.

“Thank you again,” she replied after a long moment of quiet, her tears gone silent and her voice gone hoarse. 

But maybe it wasn’t a question of either/or.

“For saving me, I mean.  For saving the Doctor.”

River did live in a _library_ , after all.  One of the largest in the universe, she’d said.

“You saved him too, more than a few times,” River said, over the tinkling of porcelain against porcelain.  “It’s what we do, the Doctor’s companions.  Save him, save each other.”

“Save the world, save the universe,” Clara added, finding it in herself to smile a little ruefully. 

“Oh, at least once a week,” River agreed with a laugh.

Maybe there were still wonders to see, in a library that size.  New butterflies to discover, operas written in the forty-second century, the histories of worlds Clara had seen in the eons after she flew away. 

“I wonder, perhaps,” River went on, softer, “if you might like to help me devise a plan to save his next companion, when the time comes.”

Clara wiped at her eyes, then turned to look at the other woman again, carefully folding the handkerchief in her lap.  “Yeah,” she said, glancing back at the butterfly.  “I think I’d like that.  When the time comes.”

Every one of the novels left stacked on Clara’s bedside table, and all of eternity to read them.  Every word that ever was, in every combination possible.

“But I think what I’d like best right now,” she continued, drawing herself up, “would be to see Jane, if that’s still a possibility.”

“As often as you like,” River replied, smiling and golden, then set down her tea and snapped her fingers to transport them to a new world.

A world where, Clara was certain, she would see _wonders_.


End file.
